by Harry Yeide
By day’s end, the 645th had lost a total of eleven tank destroyers battling the German offensive (plus six more abandoned in deep mud), but it had killed twenty-five panzers with direct fire, plus twelve through artillery concentrations directed by battalion personnel.41 Company A, 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion, was attached to the 645th during the day to compensate for the 645th’s losses. But February proved a costly month for the 894th, too: The outfit lost seven men killed, fifty-two wounded, and fourteen missing.42
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Lieutenant John Hudson‘s men at the overpass itself were bombed and strafed frequently on 18 February, but the guns were well protected, and the outfit suffered no casualties. That night, Hudson crawled infantry-style down a drainage ditch that ran beside a rail line parallel to the road to do some scouting. As he neared a culvert, he could hear the voices of a German patrol from inside the pipe.
At 0400 hours the next morning, a strong German infantry assault supported by panzers tried to push down the Albano–Anzio road through the defenses at the overpass. Hudson’s 2d Platoon stood right in the way of the advancing panzers.
Hudson spotted the panzer column as it clanked into view. A Tiger was the first vehicle in line. Hudson ordered his guns to fire at five hundred yards. Staff Sergeant Merle Downs, a small, quiet, but immensely competent noncom, opened up first. Hudson watched in dismay as fifteen 3-inch tracer rounds deflected off the Tiger’s thick hide. He began to wonder how the encounter was going to turn out. Fortunately, the ground was still too soft for the panzers to deploy off the road and engage the outnumbered TDs.
Two more rounds had bounced off the Tiger when its turret began to rotate toward the flank as the panzer commander sought out his tormenters. The tank killers saw their opening and put three quick shots through the less-armored side of the Mark VI’s turret. A hulking derelict now completely blocked the road, and the M10s engaged the panzers strung out in the column behind the Tiger.
When the Germans withdrew from the hopeless fight, they left behind two Tigers and five Mark IVs, all credited to the guns of 2d Platoon.43
In the neighboring British sector, the M10s of the 894th maintained such a high rate of fire that crews worried rounds would begin to “cook off” when shoved in the breech because of the heat. Corporal Arthur Wiest of Company C recalled the Southerners in the battalion whooping rebel yells as they fired machine guns at charging German infantry.44
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On the night of 19–20 February, C/701st moved into positions along the Albano–Anzio road to relieve Company A. The last German attack struck the men at the overpass at dawn on 20 February. Seventy-two British 25-pounders—the major commanding had earlier set up a telephone link to Hudson’s positions—delivered a barrage that broke up the attack.45 (Indeed, seventy-five percent of all German casualties during the failed offensive were caused by Allied artillery.)46 Two platoons from Company C joined tanks from the 1st Armored Division in conducting a reconnaissance-in-force against German positions. The TDs engaging German armor in the vicinity of Terre di Padiglione destroyed one Mark IV and one Tiger in exchange for two damaged but salvageable M10s.47 The probe also destroyed two battered German infantry battalions.48
The German offensive was over. On 22 February, Lucas was replaced by MajGen Lucian Truscott Jr.
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Anzio became a siege, a violent stalemate differentiated only by occasional offensive jabs by one side or the other. These were at times vigorous: The crews of the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion KO’d twenty-five panzers and SP guns during one local thrust in late February.49
The Germans could survey and shell the entire beachhead, so the Allies hid by day and moved by night. (LtCol Harrison King, commanding the 701st Tank Destroyer Battalion, was critically wounded on 25 March when a shell fired not by the Germans but by the 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion struck a branch over the heads of his party, killing or wounding several men.)50 Yet the Allies steadily added to their assets ashore. Over the longer run, the Germans had no hope of matching this build-up.
Tank destroyers by and large reverted to the artillery role. The British now dubbed the men from the 894th who were providing them with indirect-fire support the “house-busters.”51 But a few platoons from each battalion were always at the front to provide antitank defense and close support for tactical operations. One day, Sgt Bill Harper’s platoon from the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion was dug in near some buildings at Isola Bella, while the Germans were dug in a few short yards away on the far side. Ordnance radioed forward and requested the serial number of Harper’s gun. Harper’s radio operator asked whether Ordnance wanted the number on the breech block or the one on the gun barrel, and was told the latter. The radioman replied that the fellow from Ordnance could come forward and get that number himself because it was in enemy territory.52
Reconnaissance Company from the 601st held part of the line at the edge of no-man’s land. The men learned quickly to discern the difference between the voom-voom-voom sound of German tank engines and the steady rrrrrr of American engines. Platoons rotated forward for a week and then were relieved by another. “Relief” was relative: The men huddled in the basements of stone houses during the dangerous hours of daylight. One recon man, sent to the rear after sustaining an injury at Beja Letina, soon begged for a transfer back to Recon because of all the “incoming mail.” “I can’t stand it back here in the hospital,” he complained. “It’s too rough!”53
The TD commanders experimented with new ways of doing business in the confined and flat bridgehead. The 701st Tank Destroyer Battalion, for example, deployed two gun companies on the line and kept the third in reserve to fire indirect missions. The forward TDs were thus able to call for and receive effective and almost immediate artillery support. The tank killers also learned to position their M10s behind sturdy buildings. Although they had no immediate field of fire (a violation of doctrine!), the destroyers needed to move only a few feet to acquire enemy targets. The Germans adapted, however, and began to zero in their AT guns on the corners of buildings that they suspected of harboring tank destroyers. This, in turn, allowed the Americans to spot and destroy some of the AT guns.54
The tank killers found new ways to use their well liked M10s more effectively. The crews began to add a covering of thick timbers and sandbags to the open turrets of their M10s when they were in positions in or beside a building, which gave them both protection and camouflage. (Later in Western Europe, when engagements with German tanks were more frequent, crews learned to cover the turrets only when in defensive positions. The open turret allowed the men to bail out quickly when the vehicle was hit—a great worry among crewmen in Sherman tank turrets who had to escape through a single hatch.) Some even built custom metal turret tops with hinged doors; the 804th Tank Destroyer Battalion, for example, fashioned covers out of wrecked halftracks and simply discarded them when the TDs had to move.55 The crews learned to run their engines only at night so as not to expose their positions. The men had to start the engines for thirty minutes per day to recharge the battery, which suffered a constant drain from the radio because the M10 lacked the small “Little Joe” generator motor found in tanks. The crews also found that sandbags reduced the radiator’s vulnerability to shrapnel and added to the protection afforded by the frontal armor.56
Some outfits took advantage of the relative inaction to establish schools for various specialties. The 894th put every man in the battalion through a course on laying, detecting, and removing antipersonnel and antitank mines. Some learned to drive M10s, while others took courses on diesel mechanics, mortars, wire communications, and repair of the 3-inch gun.57
Checked at Cassino
The landings at Anzio accomplished, Major General Clark on 23 January visited his three corps commanders and urged them to step up efforts to crack the Gustav Line and link up with the beachhead.58 The Americans needed to drive up the Liri Valley to accomplish this mission. The keys to the German defenses were the Cassino massi
f, the town of Cassino, and the Benedictine Abbey that brooded over the valley from the mountainside.
The 34th Infantry Division launched the first attack toward the objective the night of 24 January. The rest of II Corps, the French Expeditionary Corps, and British 10 Corps entered the fray over the next several days, but progress was minimal. On 31 January, Company C of the 776th Tank Destroyer Battalion entered battle in support of the tankers of the 756th Tank Battalion, who in turn fought beside the doughs of the 34th Infantry Division still struggling to consolidate the crossing of the Rapido River southeast of Cassino.
The first American troops reached the outskirts of Cassino on 3 February. The Germans fought back skillfully from the thick-walled buildings, and the Americans withdrew. The 34th Infantry Division launched another major attempt to take the town on 7 February. This time, the TDs from the 776th crawled into town to support the tanks and doughs.59 Street fighting was a rare and unwelcome experience for the TD crews in Italy, mainly because the streets in Italian towns were usually so narrow that armor could not operate. The 3-inch gun, as it turned out, was particularly effective against German pillboxes and fortified houses.60
In the northwest corner of Cassino, the infantry asked a TD platoon commander to knock out a 50mm gun the Germans had placed in the third floor of a building. The only catch was that American doughs were already on the first floor. The tank destroyer commander crossed his fingers, put four rounds into the structure, knocked out the gun, and never scratched a doughboy.61
During the day, a Company C M10 destroyed the battalion’s first enemy tank of the Italian campaign. This was four-and-a-half months after battalion had entered the fray—a vignette that underscored the fact that the TD crews were fighting a war that bore little resemblance to the one envisioned in their doctrine.
But the Germans held on. The 34th Infantry Division had been bled white, so a newly created provisional corps consisting of the 2d New Zealand Division and the 4th Indian Division moved into the line to take another crack at Cassino.
On 15 February, American bombers struck the Benedictine abbey on Monte Cassino after a soul-searching discussion within the Allied chain of command had concluded that the action was necessary to support the New Zealand Corps offensive. Second Corps artillery added to the destructive bombardment,62 and the M10s of B/636th contributed several concentrations of 3-inch fire into the rubble late in the afternoon.63 The ruins, in the event, provided superb defensive positions to the Germans.
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The fighting around Cassino once again demonstrated that tank destroying was a relatively safe occupation as compared with those of the rifleman and tanker. Infantry divisions were ground down to the size of regiments. During February, the 636th Tank Destroyer battalion lost only two men killed and seven wounded, all to German artillery fire. The casualties, however, included much of the command group who were in the battalion CP when it took a direct hit on 12 February.64
On 16 March, a flight of B-25 bombers dropped their load on the positions of C/636th (now attached to CCB/1st Armored Division), which were located behind the front line near Cassino. Thanks to the crews’ now habitual construction of elaborate foxholes and dugouts near their vehicles, only one man was so badly wounded that he required evacuation. At least the American attack provided a break from the frequent German air strikes along the front.65
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More than a month after the destruction of the abbey, the Allies were still trying to capture Cassino—the town itself having now been treated to a massive air bombardment, as well. On 15 March, the New Zealanders launched another effort to clear the town. By 21 March, both they and the Indian troops trying to clear the mountainside were exhausted, and Allied commanders were debating whether to abandon the assault.66
That day, Brigadier Burrows, commanding the 5th New Zealand Armored Brigade, asked 636th Tank Destroyer Battalion CO LtCol Van Pyland whether it would be possible to lay fire safely within two hundred yards of friendly troops. The conventional wisdom was that the 3-inch gun had too flat a trajectory to fire close to friendly positions. Pyland, however, said it could be done because his guns were registered on a building very near the spot Burrows wanted to hit. The 636th ran a telephone line to the Kiwi CP and made plans.
The next day, from 1100 to 1245, Pyland personally directed fire into the Continental Hotel in Cassino. An American officer in a tank near the Continental Hotel helped adjust the fire.67
Pyland now discovered the hazards of supporting Allied troops who had even less knowledge of TD doctrine than American commanders. On 23 March, he received orders via CCB to send four M10s into Cassino to “knock down some buildings and drive enemy tanks out.” Pyland objected that this idea ran against every principle of tank destroyer tactics. CCB passed the buck and told Pyland to take the matter up with General Parkinson, CG of the New Zealand Division. Parkinson reiterated his orders, so Pyland and his operations officer (S-3) drove to the Kiwi headquarters, where Pyland met with Brigadier Burrows to coordinate the operation—and in all likelihood repeated his opinions on the matter. Some time later, CCB notified the 636th that the plan had been scrubbed.68
Once again, the Allies failed to capture Cassino. And the rains fell.
An End to Stalemate
In the early hours of 11 May, Capt Richard Danzi, 636th Tank Destroyer Battalion S-3, met with the commanders of the line companies and passed them fire mission orders. Men made ready. Night fell, warm and misty. It was so still that Sgt Tom Sherman could hear dogs barking on the far side of the Liri Valley.69
At 2300 hours, the M10s of the 636th and 804th Tank Destroyer battalions joined the cacophony of 155mm Long Toms, 105mm howitzers, and 75mm tank guns throwing HE rounds at the German defenses of the Gustav Line.
The crews in the 804th had only entered the line in the Cassino sector along the Garigliano River in March and engaged in artillery duels with the enemy. Now, doughs of the 88th Infantry Division advanced with the tank destroyers in close support. The M10s blasted machine gun nests and other strongpoints. Recon men roamed ahead, spotting German positions and clearing mines. The battalion nonetheless had two TDs damaged by mines.70
By 15 May, the Gustav Line had collapsed.
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That same day, the 636th Tank Destroyer Battalion was pulled from the II Corps line for transfer to the Anzio beachhead, where it arrived on 19 May. Feverish preparations were underway there, and the battalion was immediately broken up. Company B was attached to the 1st Armored Division and further subordinated to the 701st Tank Destroyer Battalion. Company A was assigned to the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion in support of the 3d Infantry Division. Each TD company received an extra M10 to use as a command vehicle. On 23 May, Company A of the 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion was attached to the depleted 636th.71
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At 0545 hours on 23 May, a tremendous artillery preparation rained down on German lines. At 0630 hours, the breakout from Anzio—Operation Buffalo—kicked off.72 The 3d Infantry and 1st Armored divisions made up the main assault force, supported by a limited advance by the 45th Infantry Division and diversionary attacks by the British.
Cracking the prepared German defenses was costly for the 3d Infantry Division, which suffered 1,626 battle casualties on the first day, the highest one-day toll paid by any American division in Europe during the war. But by late on 24 May, the offensive had advanced a dozen miles, and the doughs of the 3d Division had taken their first main objective, Cisterna.73 The first phase was an infantry struggle, although the crews of the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion—working closely with the infantry-support tanks—helped when they could by engaging strongpoints, guns, and tanks.74
Vast minefields resulting from months of siege warfare proved to be the greatest danger to the tank destroyers during the breakout. The 601st lost four M10s destroyed and ten damaged to mines (plus two TDs damaged by shellfire)—half the battalion’s strength. Casualties, particularly among drivers, were unusually heav
y as a consequence.75
To the left of the 3d Infantry Division, the 1st Armored Division’s CCA blew holes through the German minefields with snakes—long, explosive-filled tubes—and crashed through the enemy line. A platoon of A/701st Tank Destroyer Battalion TDs and one of engineers accompanied each tank company to provide close support. As the armored force approached its objective—high ground beyond a railroad line—Cpl John Conlin spotted two Tigers rolling along a slope. He got a “lightning draw” on them, and his gunner put a 3-inch round neatly alongside the barrel of each 88mm gun. Both turrets locked because of the damage, and Conlin pounded the panzers with HE rounds until they caught fire. Informed over the radio that a counterattack by twenty-five Tigers was expected, Conlin’s company commander, Capt John Wright, called back, “Make that twenty-three. I’ve just knocked out two.” The company lost five men wounded, two M10s knocked out by mines, and one M10 destroyed by antitank fire.76
Lieutenant Arthur Edson, just transferred to take command of C/701st Tank Destroyer Battalion, had worse luck. CCB/1st Armored Division relied on riflemen instead of snakes to clear the mines. During the long siege, American troops had laid mines on top of mines, and the minesweepers did not discover the lower layers. When the heavy armored vehicles gradually compressed the earth, they detonated the lower layers and suffered the loss of twenty-three tanks and eight M10s from Company C. The command nevertheless reached its objective by nightfall. By then, Company A had KO’d eight panzers, and Company C scored two.77
On 24 May, a German Tiger tank battalion counterattacked the 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division, and all but wiped out one platoon of Company B. An unidentified TD element (possibly M10s from B/894th Tank Destroyer Battalion, which was attached to the 645th in support of the 45th Infantry Division) engaged the Mark VIs; 3-inch fire penetrated two of them and exploded their ammo. Artillery fire drove off the rest. The official U.S. Army history makes no mention of the role played by the TDs in beating off this attack, but the doughs said the TDs had saved the day.78
